New Cirith Ungol Album w/ Michael Whelan Art & Radiohead-inspired TTRPG

Legendary metal band Cirith Ungol have released a live album and DVD from a one-night only performance at the Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip. The band continues their association with iconic fantasy artist Michael Whelan with another epic album cover as the band explains on their website:

Cirith Ungol are thrilled that another Michael Whelan masterpiece, “Demonslayer” is gracing the Live at the Roxy cover. Each studio album’s cover art is taken from the cover of a DAW Books edition of a book in Michael Moorcock‘s Elric of Melniboné saga; the art is by Michael Whelan. The backstory on the Live at the Roxy art is classic: “Around 1984, Michael was at a fantasy convention in Los Angeles and came up to Ventura for a visit. He brought this illustration ‘Demonslayer’ to my parent’s house, the location of our original band room, and we left it on the staircase, and went out to dinner, not knowing that someday it would grace another one of our album covers!”

The artwork was originally created for a special hardcover edition of Michael Moorcock’s The Vanishing Tower, and you can order a print from the Michael Whelan website.

The performances and audio quality on Live at the Roxy are stellar. Check out the videos for “Down Below” and “Relentless”:

You can stream the album now from the Cirith Ungol Bandcamp page, and you can order/pre-order the album and DVD in a variety of formats. Personally, I pre-ordered the Bandcamp-exclusive White/Blue Splatter vinyl and DVD package.

I Don’t Belong Here

In our interview last week, Rust Never Sleeps creator Asa Donald mentioned I Don’t Belong Here by Adam STATION. This music-inspired RPG project is currently crowdfunding, and here is a description from the campaign page:

“A modern horror RPG sparkbook inspired by the lyrics of Radiohead. Discover twisted characters, existential horrors, strange environments, signs of the end times, and more. Just roll three six-sided dice to unlock new terrors.”

I love RPG projects that are inspired by a single band. Get more details and pledge your support from the I Don’t Belong Here Backerkit page.

Dungeon Con

I will be making a roadtrip to attend Dungeon Con this Saturday, which is hosted by Goodman Games. If any Critical Hit Parader readers are attending, please let me know so we can say hi in person!